A foreign judgment allows a French bank account to be frozen straight away by way of a protective attachment, with the leave of the enforcement judge or, in some cases, without it. To be paid out of that account through an attributive attachment, an enforceable title is required: exequatur, except for judgments given in EU Member States, which are enforceable as of right.
A New York court ordered a French trading company in March to pay 3.2 million dollars to its former American partner. The judgment is final, all avenues of appeal are exhausted, and the creditor knows that the company banks with a Paris branch of a large retail bank. He also knows that his debtor’s cash will not sit in that account indefinitely. The question he puts to his lawyer is a short one: can the account be frozen now, and on what conditions can payment then be obtained out of it?
The answer is yes in both cases, but not at the same moment and not with the same instrument. French law distinguishes the protective attachment (saisie conservatoire), which makes the funds unavailable, from the attributive attachment (saisie-attribution), which transfers them to the creditor. The first requires no enforceable title; the second does, and a foreign judgment only becomes one after exequatur or under a regime of recognition as of right. This page sets out both stages, how the bank is located, what the bank actually freezes, the time limits that run against the creditor, and the situations in which the European regime allows faster action. It applies to judgments, and equally to arbitral awards, whose treatment is very close.
1. An attributive attachment requires an enforceable title, and a foreign judgment is not one in itself
Article L. 211-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures opens the attributive attachment to any creditor holding an enforceable title establishing a liquidated debt that has fallen due. A bank account is, technically, a claim of the customer against his bank: the creditor therefore attaches, in the hands of the bank, what the bank owes its customer. Article L. 211-2 gives that step a formidable effect, namely the immediate attribution to the attaching creditor of the claim seized, up to the sums claimed. Attachments served afterwards by other creditors, even preferential ones, do not rank alongside it. The first to attach validly takes everything available, within the limit of his own claim.
An enforceable title is still needed, and article L. 111-3 sets out an exhaustive list. Decisions of the French courts appear there once they carry enforceable force. Foreign judgments and arbitral awards only enter that list once they have been declared enforceable by a decision no longer open to an appeal with suspensive effect, without prejudice to European Union law. In other words, the New York judgment, however final at home, permits no attributive attachment in France until a French judicial court has granted exequatur, and until the exequatur decision itself is beyond the reach of a suspensive appeal.
That rule has three sets of exceptions, depending on where the decision comes from. A judgment given in another Member State in civil and commercial matters is enforceable in France with no prior procedure at all, under Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, known as Brussels I bis, on production of a copy of the decision and of the certificate provided for in its article 53. A Swiss, Norwegian or Icelandic judgment falls under the 2007 Lugano Convention, which retains a declaration of enforceability granted on application, quick but not dispensable. A British judgment given in proceedings begun on or after 1 July 2025 falls under the Hague Convention of 2 July 2019, which frames the grounds of refusal but does not remove the step before the French court. Everything else, including American, Chinese, Emirati and Singaporean decisions, follows the general law of exequatur, whose conditions are set out in the six points that decide whether a foreign title will be enforceable.
2. Before exequatur, a protective attachment freezes the account without emptying it
A creditor waiting for exequatur is not condemned to watch the money leave. Article L. 511-1 of the same code allows any person whose claim appears well founded in principle to ask the judge for leave to take a protective measure over the debtor’s assets, with no prior formal demand, provided he shows circumstances likely to threaten recovery. A foreign judgment, even without exequatur, is very strong evidence of the principle of the claim: the enforcement judge does not have to examine its international regularity, that review belonging to the exequatur judge alone, and confines himself to noting that a court has ruled in the applicant’s favour.
The threat to recovery is assessed concretely. A foreign debtor with no other known assets in France, a company whose accounts have already been moved abroad, a director who has put his Paris property up for sale, a group reorganising its subsidiaries: each of these, once documented, will ordinarily suffice. Leave is granted by the enforcement judge, or by the president of the commercial court where the claim falls within commercial jurisdiction and the application is made before any proceedings on the merits (article L. 511-3). It is granted on an ex parte application, so without the debtor being heard or warned, which is precisely where the value of the measure lies.
More striking still, article L. 511-2 dispenses with leave for a creditor relying on an enforceable title or on a court decision that does not yet carry enforceable force. Ruling on the former article 68 of the Law of 9 July 1991, from which that provision derives, the Court of Cassation held that the wording covers any decision emanating from a court, whether state or arbitral, so that an arbitral award not yet granted exequatur allows a protective attachment without going before the judge (Cass. 2e civ., 12 October 2006, No 04-19.062). The same question has arisen for foreign judgments: several lower courts have accepted that such a judgment is a court decision not yet carrying enforceable force within the meaning of that provision, and the Paris Court of Appeal even held, on 17 May 2023 (No 22/11816), that a refusal of exequatur did not prevent a protective attachment founded on article L. 511-1, the claim appearing well founded in principle irrespective of enforceable force. Where the stakes justify it, the safer course in practice remains to file an application with the enforcement judge: the order obtained puts an end to any later argument about the basis of the attachment.
3. Finding the bank: what the law gives the creditor and what it withholds
Attaching an account presupposes knowing where it is. The commissaire de justice in charge of enforcement has access, for that purpose, to the register of bank accounts kept by the tax administration, FICOBA, under articles L. 152-1 and L. 152-2 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. The latter obliges institutions authorised to hold deposit accounts to tell him whether one or more accounts, joint or merged, are open in the debtor’s name, and where they are held, to the exclusion of any other information and without being able to raise professional secrecy. The former extends the duty of disclosure to public administrations, expressly including where the commissaire de justice is acting under a court decision authorising a protective attachment of bank accounts.
That last point is decisive for a foreign creditor. It means that the enforcement judge’s order authorising the protective attachment opens access to FICOBA even though the creditor holds no French enforceable title yet. The sequence is therefore as follows: application to the enforcement judge on the strength of the foreign judgment, order authorising a protective attachment up to a stated amount, search of the register by the commissaire de justice, then attachment at each institution identified, the whole within a few days and without the debtor learning of it before the act is served.
What the creditor does not obtain is the balance. The register shows that the account exists and which branch holds it, not what is in it. An account may be empty on the day of the attachment, and the attachment bites only on the credit balance of that day. This is why timing matters more than a perfect file: between the day the debtor learns that his creditor is active in France and the day of the attachment, the cash has time to change country. In files where the debtor is known to receive money on fixed dates, a rent roll or a customer settlement, the attachment is planned for the day after the money comes in.
4. What the bank freezes, what it leaves and what it must declare
The immediate declaration by the garnishee
On service, the bank must declare there and then to the commissaire de justice the extent of its obligations towards the debtor, that is the balance of each account, together with anything capable of affecting them and, where applicable, earlier assignments of claims, delegations, pledges or attachments (articles L. 211-3 and R. 211-4). That declaration binds the bank. An institution that declares inaccurately, or lets the funds go after the attachment, may be ordered to pay the sums claimed in its customer’s place. This is what makes bank attachment so effective compared with other enforcement routes: the garnishee is a solvent professional with no interest in protecting the debtor.
The unattachable balance and special accounts
Where the debtor is an individual, the bank leaves at his disposal a subsistence sum equal to the flat-rate amount of the revenu de solidarité active for a single claimant, within the limit of the credit balance on the day of the attachment (article L. 162-2). Where the debtor is a company, nothing is left. A joint account may be attached for the whole of its balance where the attachment is levied against one of the holders, it being for the other to show what share belongs to him. Regulated savings accounts, securities accounts and term deposits are not out of reach, but their availability regime and the calculation of the attachable sum call for specific checking. Operations in progress on the day of the attachment, cheques remitted for collection, transfers under way, card withdrawals, are regularised within fifteen working days, which explains why the balance finally attached may differ from the balance declared.
5. The European regime: a Member State judgment is enforced without exequatur, and the European order reaches the accounts
A creditor holding a German, Italian, Spanish or Dutch judgment need ask the French court for nothing before attaching. Under Brussels I bis, a decision enforceable in the State of origin is enforceable in France as of right, and article 40 of the regulation states that it carries with it as of right the power to proceed to any protective measure provided for by the law of the State addressed. The creditor therefore goes to the commissaire de justice with a copy of the decision and the article 53 certificate, and may levy an attributive attachment directly or, if discretion is preferred, a protective attachment without leave. The debtor can only react by applying to the enforcement judge for refusal of enforcement on one of the grounds exhaustively listed in article 45, and that application does not of itself suspend protective measures.
Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 added a tool specific to bank accounts, the European Account Preservation Order. It is available to a creditor domiciled in a Member State, against a debtor whose account is held in another Member State, even before any proceedings on the merits or after a decision has been obtained (article 5). It is granted without the debtor being heard, within five working days where the creditor already holds a decision and ten working days otherwise (article 18), and the bank must declare the funds preserved within three working days of implementation (article 25). Above all, article 14 allows a creditor holding an enforceable decision, but unaware which bank holds his debtor’s account, to ask the court seised to have that information obtained by the designated authority of the State of enforcement. For an Italian creditor pursuing a debtor with accounts in Paris, this is the cross-border equivalent of FICOBA.
Two limits keep American and British creditors outside that order. The definition of creditor presupposes domicile in a Member State (article 4, point 6), and the decision relied on must have been obtained in a Member State. A creditor in New York or London, or a French creditor holding a judgment given outside the Union, therefore comes back to the protective measures of French law described above, which are in any event often faster for anyone who already knows the bank.
6. American and English judgments and arbitral awards: protective measure first, exequatur next
For a decision given outside the Union and outside the Lugano Convention, the workable sequence is almost always the same. The creditor starts with a protective attachment, on application or on the basis of article L. 511-2, in order to freeze what can be frozen. He then issues exequatur proceedings before the judicial court, where representation by a lawyer is mandatory. The judge verifies the indirect jurisdiction of the foreign court, the conformity of the decision with international public policy as to substance and procedure, and the absence of fraud, without reviewing the merits (Cass. 1re civ., 20 February 2007, No 05-14.082, Cornelissen). The points on which American and English judgments fail, disproportionate punitive damages, default judgments without proper service, costs out of all proportion, are examined in the article on enforcing American and English judgments in France.
An arbitral award takes a shorter route. Exequatur is sought by ex parte application to the judicial court of Paris for awards made abroad, and the judge checks only the existence of the award and the absence of manifest contrariety to international public policy (articles 1514 to 1516 of the Code of Civil Procedure). The exequatur order is obtained within a few weeks, and an appeal against it does not in principle suspend enforcement. A creditor holding an award can therefore run protective attachment, exequatur and conversion into an attributive attachment within a quarter, where the debtor fails to obtain a stay. The documents and the available challenges are set out in the article on exequatur of an arbitral award in France.
One precaution applies in both cases: article L. 111-3 requires the exequatur decision to be beyond the reach of an appeal with suspensive effect before the foreign judgment becomes an enforceable title. An exequatur judgment under appeal, where the appeal suspends enforcement, does not yet allow the protective attachment to be converted. Provisional enforcement, now available as of right for first instance decisions save in exceptional cases, often changes the picture, and is one of the points to be asked for expressly in the writ.
7. The time limits that bring the attachment down, and conversion into an attributive attachment
A protective attachment levied without an enforceable title is fragile by design. Article L. 511-4 requires the creditor, on pain of lapse, to commence or pursue proceedings capable of producing an enforceable title, and article R. 511-7 sets the period: one month from implementation of the measure. For the holder of a foreign judgment, the proceedings to be commenced within that month are the exequatur action, or the exequatur application in the case of an award. A creditor who attaches on the 3rd of the month and issues only on the 5th of the following month loses his attachment, and the bank releases the funds. The attachment must also be notified to the debtor within eight days, and only then does he learn that the account has been frozen.
Once exequatur has been obtained and has become enforceable, the creditor serves on the bank a deed of conversion which must contain, on pain of nullity, the reference to the record of the protective attachment, a statement of the enforceable title, a separate account of the sums due in principal, costs and interest with the applicable rate, and a demand for payment up to the sums the bank has acknowledged owing (article R. 523-7). That deed brings about immediate attribution to the creditor, ranking from the date of the initial protective attachment. A creditor who attached first, on a protective basis, therefore prevails over those who levied an attributive attachment in the meantime, up to the sums rendered unavailable (article L. 523-1).
On the attributive attachment side, the debtor has one month from notification to challenge it before the enforcement judge, failing which the challenge is inadmissible, the writ having to be notified the same day to the commissaire de justice (article R. 211-11). Absent any challenge within that period, the bank pays on production of a certificate of non-challenge. A debtor who tries to replay before the enforcement judge the arguments he lost before the exequatur judge meets the authority of res judicata, and the enforcement judge cannot call the title into question.
8. The situations that complicate matters: foreign States, directors, accounts outside France
The account of a foreign State or of a State emanation does not follow the ordinary regime. Since the Law of 9 December 2016, article L. 111-1-1 makes any protective or enforcement measure over property belonging to a foreign State subject to prior leave of the judge, granted on application, and article L. 111-1-2 allows the measure only where the State has consented to enforcement, where it has allocated the property to the satisfaction of the claim, or where the property is used otherwise than for non-commercial public service purposes and is connected with the entity targeted. The accounts of embassies and diplomatic missions enjoy a presumption of public service allocation that is particularly hard to rebut. A creditor of a State, even one holding an arbitral award, must therefore build the file on the nature of the funds targeted before making any application.
A director’s personal account can be attached only if the director has himself been ordered to pay. A foreign judgment against a company does not reach the accounts of its manager, its shareholder or its sister company, unless a separate title is obtained against them or commingling of assets is established by the routes the law provides. Foreign creditors frequently underestimate that limit and discover, after exequatur, that the company ordered to pay is an empty shell and that the money is elsewhere. Identifying the debtor and its assets precisely, before even choosing the enforcement route, avoids that disappointment.
Lastly, an account held abroad by a French bank cannot be attached in France by service on the Paris head office: the attachment bites on claims located in France, and the London or Singapore branch falls under the enforcement measures of its own country. Conversely, an account opened in Paris by a foreign bank can be attached in the hands of its French branch. A creditor pursuing an international group is well advised to map its accounts country by country and to choose, for each of them, the appropriate title and procedure, which means coordinating the French exequatur with equivalent proceedings elsewhere.
The firm acts for foreign creditors seeking to recover in France and for French debtors facing an attachment based on a foreign title; its exequatur page and its page on enforcing foreign judgments in France describe the situations in which it is most often instructed, and the contact form allows a case to be outlined in a few lines.
Frequently asked questions
Can a bank account be attached in France without exequatur of the foreign judgment?
On a protective basis, yes. Article L. 511-1 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures allows the funds to be frozen with the leave of the enforcement judge where the claim appears well founded in principle and its recovery is threatened, and a foreign judgment largely establishes that principle. An attributive attachment, which transfers the funds to the creditor, requires an enforceable title, which the foreign judgment only becomes after exequatur, except for decisions of EU Member States, enforceable as of right under Brussels I bis.
How can the creditor find out which bank holds the debtor’s account?
The commissaire de justice searches the FICOBA register, which lists every account opened in France, under articles L. 152-1 and L. 152-2 of the Code of Civil Enforcement Procedures. That access is open to him when he holds an enforceable title, but also when he is enforcing a court decision authorising a protective attachment of bank accounts. The enforcement judge’s order obtained on the strength of the foreign judgment therefore opens the search. The register shows the existence of the account and the branch, never the balance.
What is the European Account Preservation Order?
It is a procedure created by Regulation (EU) No 655/2014 allowing a creditor domiciled in a Member State to freeze, without the debtor being heard, an account held in another Member State, before or after obtaining a decision. It is issued within five working days where the creditor already holds a decision, and it allows, subject to conditions, the debtor’s accounts to be traced by the authority of the State of enforcement. It is not available to a creditor domiciled outside the Union, nor on the basis of a decision given outside the Union.
Does the bank warn the debtor of the attachment?
It is not the bank that informs the debtor but the commissaire de justice, who must notify the attachment to him within eight days, on pain of lapse (article R. 211-3 for the attributive attachment, with an identical period for the protective attachment). By the time the debtor learns of it, the funds are already unavailable. In practice the bank freezes the account as soon as the deed is served, and the customer often notices when a payment is rejected, before the deed reaches him.
How long does the account stay frozen?
After a protective attachment, the funds remain unavailable until the measure is converted into an attributive attachment or lifted by the judge. The creditor must commence exequatur proceedings within one month of the attachment (article R. 511-7), failing which the measure lapses and the bank releases the funds. Uncontested exequatur proceedings under the general regime usually take six to eight months, longer if the debtor raises serious grounds. After conversion, the debtor has one month to challenge, and the bank then pays the creditor.
On the same subject, on the urgency side: securing the debtor’s assets in France before exequatur; on other assets: arresting a ship in France on the strength of a foreign judgment and seizing real property in France; on the debtor’s side: challenging exequatur of a foreign judgment.
On the regime applicable to each decision: the six points that decide whether a foreign title will be enforceable; on common law judgments: enforcing an American or English judgment in France and enforcing a Canadian or Quebec judgment; on arbitration: exequatur of an arbitral award, application, documents and challenges.